Blogger neglect

..Didnt realize I havent posted in over a week. No big stories, things are pretty busy with Alexa out of school for the summer.....but the weather has sucked, if its not raining, it god awful humid.....hopefully will get some things done around the house this weekend. The outside is a disaster thanks to all the rain....its like an amazon rainforest....

Looking forward to the four qtr final world cup games fri and sat:

Supporting Argentina because of Gabriel Heinze who plays for Manchester United and I'm a huge Lionel Messi fan......

Ukraine over the cheating, diving vermin Italians (nothing against Italians but i HATE italian football)

Brazil over France...

and my heart is with England over those other cheating, diving, vermin Portugal (except you Christiano Ronaldo from Manchester United).....

Sunday will fire up the grill...Monday I work and we'll hang with the kids on the 4th (and of course the first of the two semis is that day)...Isnt it the american way to sit inside on the 4th of July and watch soccer??????????

nano nano

I received an IPOD nano for Fathers Day. My first Ipod upgrade from my IPOD shuffle. Still love the shuffle because I can beat the crap out of it and not worry. We went with the 2 gig model which holds about 500 songs. So i've spent several days working on my playlists (I've got about 3500 songs in my I-tunes). Took it to the park and it worked perfectly so far.

Still a little sluggish with my running, feeling a bit run down with a slight cold...etc..etc...going to
make some changes next week after the end of soccer and start adding weight training back into the mix....I've dropped about ten pounds since the season began in april, so i'm down about 25 since spring of 05'.

Who says you can't go home

Some my best memories from the last two years of high school and the first couple of summers of college were working at a movie theater. I received an email from a friend who worked with me in our "glory days" (its true they do pass you by), alerting me to its demise to the wrecking ball. I happened to be in town today to see my dad for fathers day I decided to swing by.....Heres all thats left:

I'd include a picture of our after work hangout....it was an Abdows BIG BOY.....but ya....they knocked that down too...........................

Last Soccer Weekend

(top to bottom)
Jenna checks her messages.....last minute instructions..waiting for the ball.....field level...on the ball.

Back to the Future (again)

Quick backstory: At one time, I was as obsessed with tennis as i am now with soccer. In high school, I was too short for hoops, not good enough for baseball, and burned out on soccer (a bit of irony eh?). So I got hooked on tennis between freshman and sophmore years in high school. I went out for the tennis team in my sophmore year and yes got cut. Not even good enough to make the J.V. So in the following summer, I played and played. Watched on TV, learned the game and at the same time, my idol became Bjorn Borg. Don't forget this was a "golden era" for mens tennis, Borg, Conners and later McEnroe, Becker..... So the following spring I make the varsity straight away in my junior year. I played for my last two years in high school and I was pretty good. I wasn't a star but I played tournys' right until i graduated and went off to college.
I wasnt good enough to play Pac-10 tennis, and to be honest it didnt cross my mind. So little by little i played less and less....flash forward to today, I dont think i've been on a tennis court with a racquet in 10 years (maybe more). I bought a can of balls, went off to the courts alone this afternoon with my trusty Borg pro (see pix) racquet circa 1980. With my Borg obession, I bought 2 of the exact racquets he used. They were both over one hundred bucks (remember its 1980 dollars). I hit a couple of ground strokes and starting hitting some serves and it was almost surreal to be out there alone. The sound the ball makes just on the bounce and feeling on the racquetalmost brought a tear to my eye and I actually hit the serves pretty well. Of course I can't wait to see how my right shoulder feels in the morning.........................................

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....Since I'm in back to the future mode....Happy 44th birthday to Leslie Kaeppel...She was a girl i went to elementary school with and I've always remembered her birthday was on flag day............

June brain dumpage

...............Just sitting her and wondering what that last piece of papertowel that sticks to the tube is called.......still running but my weight loss has hit a plateau the last two weeks...so i've made adjustments to my diet starting with switching to (gag) fat free coffee mate instead of the goodstuff.........I'm in soccer nirvana with the world cup going on.....My car (go back to februarys posts for details) that i bought is closing in on 10k miles...............Don't know if i mentioned this in other posts but "Rescue me" on FX is my favorite show at the moment. For the record, RE-heated coffee with coffeemate SUCKS. In our new house....we have a much bigger and more rural backyard....so i'm out with Alexa doing some crap in the yard and within 15 min=5 bug bits. The ugly Achilles heal of living where we do.....

Graduation day

25 years ago today

25 years ago today.H.S. Graduation.....I'm on the right and I don't know why I looked stoned. I do have quite a smug look on my face....so stoned no.....drunk later on? absolutely. I actually don't recall much about the day. It was a perfect weather day. My friends cap almost went out the window on our way to the ceremony. I do remember wanting to leave my family party (welcome to being 18). I do remember going to two parties: one at someones house (I didn't drive) and a keg party in a field....Thats all that comes to mind.

WISHFUL thinking dept:

Is this a file photo?? Nope............took it today on June 6th 2006.....special promotion...NOPE.....the answer below....
































.....ok.....Just the guy changing the sign before he added the fucking two..........

Finally made it to the park

Washouts and Graduations

...topics not related....I know you're saying....."where are those new picutres of your daughter playing soccer?". Both games this weekend canceled.....last weekend...no games holiday weekend.

This is the last week of pre-school for Alexa. We both agreed she didnt learn much this year, but she IS an expert from school at drawing mommy and daddy as various types of stick figures. Time to work with her this summer on her math skills......

Back to the Future

Normally I don't put pics of ME on this blog (I think this might be the first), But a friend from college sent me this pic from around 1984 from a frat function. It's a great timeline with the hair and the clothes...its was early in the morning i think and yet, check out all champagne bottles. I'm the fat one wacking the kid in the ass. Take note of the look on my face.....looks like i'm going to send him across three states: